Jesus is Not a Seasoning

invoking Jesus when its convenient does not cancel out all the evil

Photo by Emmy Smith on Unsplash

I made a comment on

Ally Hamilton

‘s last (terrific) post, and she told me I needed to write about it. So if you didn’t want a RANT on your weekend, you can blame Ally.

Catch and Release

I’m still reeling that my community lost a friend and I’m so mad about so many different things that it has been hard for me to write at all. Everything is terrible. All of the time. And we have been dealing with this orange asshole FOR AN ENTIRE DECADE.

I am mad about allll of the things —ICE, climate change, possible WW3, anti-trans laws, SCOTUS ruining our damn summer for the past many years, and the fact that it went from 60 degrees and raining to Dante’s Inferno here in NYC in the space of three days. Its going to be over 100 degrees next week. What the fuck.

But. There is always the thing I am most Big Mad about, and that’s reproductive rights. I’ve been Big Mad about it the longest, and watching literally everything I was terrified would happen come true, except worse, has me raging on the daily. I am a paid subscriber of

Jessica Valenti

’s Abortion Every Day, because she keeps me informed of the bullshittery that seems to get barely any coverage elsewhere. Because, as it turns out, a whole lot of people do not give a shit!

Jessica was talking about Adriana Smith before most people were. In case you don’t know what I’m referring to, read it and weep.

Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse and mother, was declared brain dead more than 90 days ago after suffering multiple blood clots in her brain. But because she was 9 weeks pregnant at the time, Georgia law is forcing her body to be used as a vessel—kept on life support until the fetus is viable.

It was this sentence from 11 Alive that made me want to throw up: “The family said doctors told them they are not legally allowed to consider other options.”

They are violating this woman’s body and devastating her family. Her mother, April Newkirk, says, “It’s torture for me. I see my daughter breathing, but she’s not there.”

And the fetus—unsurprisingly—is not doing well. The doctors told Newkirk that there is fluid on the fetus’ brain and that he may not be able to see, walk—or even survive—once he’s born.

“This decision should’ve been left to us,” Newkirk said. “Now we’re left wondering what kind of life he’ll have—and we’re going to be the ones raising him.

When I read that, my entire body recoiled.

WHAT HORROR MOVIE INSANITY IS THIS SHIT????

But you know. We have to medically experiment on technically dead women, because Jesus!¹

This has fuck-all to do with Jesus. And listen, I know the guy. I was raised Catholic. Roman Catholic. And nowhere in my near decade of CCD did anyone say “Jesus hated women so much that he wants them to suffer as much as humanly possible”.

Did they say a bunch of stuff I disagreed with? Yes. But what I learned about Jesus was that he wanted us to be charitable, feed the poor, and be kind to our neighbors. It’s always weird to me that Christianity is so rigid when Jesus was a big ol’ hippie. Even though I no longer consider myself a Christian or a Catholic, my church was pretty tree huggy and liberal and I am glad that was my experience.²

So, to all the alleged “Christians” out there…

You call yourself a Christian but if you think it is okay to experiment on a woman who is dead in almost every sense except a heartbeat, against the wishes of her family, you are not “pro-life”. Her family has had to watch her lay there in that bed, knowing there is no hope she will wake up, for this entire pregnancy. They are going to be left to care for a child who, should he survive this ordeal at all, will be best case growing up without a mother and will learn the horrible circumstances around his birth. Not to mention whatever the NICU bill will be, which by the way, the government is not paying for. ³

So, “Christians”, let me tell you something right now. This isn’t Christianity. I don’t know what the hell it is, but it’s got nothing to do with Heaven.

You can’t do something this horrible and just sprinkle some Jesus on it.

You’re trying to sprinkle Jesus on deportations too. He’s not a seasoning, babe. You are still serving everyone a shit sandwich, and no one’s gonna say it doesn’t taste like shit just because you sprinkled Jesus on it again. It is cruel, inhumane, and also against the law.

If you’re a true believer, you’re supposed to behave in his image. I am pretty sure that his brand was not “torture immigrant families” and “spend so much money on one maybe doomed child while other kids starve”. You can’t be like BUT JESUS and then expect that everyone will forget the evil shit you do.

Adriana Smith was a baby too, 31 years ago. But you stopped giving two shits about her life right quick. As soon as a child is born, they are now in the world, by no choice of their own. They now have to do this whole life thing and be an adult and learn to drive and get a job, and then we turn around and do this to them? To their families? Nope.

The simple fact is that y’all regard a 9 week pregnancy higher than the actual human being carrying it, because it does not have a single thought or opinion of its own. You don’t have to deal with them in any way. That cluster of cells with fetal pole activity is a fantasy you have in your own head, and these laws ignore the reality of the actual human beings who suffer because you are delusional, and because you hate actual human women who can speak.

Anyway we are at war now (I was in the middle of writing this when the news broke). I just had to get this out. Everyone get your medical directives sorted - make sure you write “I do not consent to be kept alive by artificial means to be a fetus incubator” - and buy some iodine pills I guess. lol FML. 🤦‍♀️

Don’t worry though. They sprinkle Jesus on bombs too so everything will be okay.

I’m going back to bed.

1. Let’s make it known from the jump that Adriana Smith is black, which adds a whole other layer to this horribleness. She apparently went to two hospitals with extreme headaches, and clearly did not receive the health care she needed, because there were two blood clots on her brain and that’s what killed her.

2. Big ups to the former pastor of St. James Church, Father Lynch, who is still alive, and as I suspected is pretty much a tree hugger who is still anti-war. I hope he forgives everything I am about to say, even though my time in confession was usually about taking the Lord’s name in vain, so he probably wouldn’t be surprised.

3. Also STOP SAYING that she “delivered” a child, news media. She didn’t “deliver” shit. They pulled a fetus weighing less than two pounds from her unconscious body.